


Moon Tail

by StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, compilation?, drabbles (do people still do drabbles?), imma call it a theme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:41:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26269666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms/pseuds/StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms
Summary: Um. I like werewolves. Conceptually.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 9
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

Gansey was frowning at the pictures. Shuffling through them. Frowning more. Adam could see his expression becoming gloomier and gloomier.

‘So.’ Blue tapped the table impatiently. ‘Vampires. We’re thinking vampires, right?’

Gansey hummed thoughtfully, frowning deeper.

‘Lotta blood.’ Ronan said, glancing up from his knife. ‘Kinda messy for vampires, ain’t it?’

‘Demons.’ Blue proposed brightly. ‘Demons?’

‘Cultists.’ Gansey answered firmly. ‘I can look into demons, but this kind of bloodshed seems ritualistic at best, animalistic at worst.’

There was a pause, broken by Ronan tossing the core of his apple across the room. It bounced off the wall into the trashcan. Gansey cleared his throat, either anxiously or reproachfully, Adam couldn’t tell.

‘Okay. So how do we find cultists?’ Blue swivelled on the table, reached across to pull the pictures from Gansey’s hands.

‘Adam and I are looking for patterns.’ He explained. It was rather charitable phrasing, Adam thought. They’d managed a few brief discussions over lunch, stolen moments between classes, all balanced around sneaking opportunities to read his own books and do his own research. Even now, his attention was reluctantly drawn to the bag at Lynch’s feet.

There didn’t seem to be any. Patterns. He knew Gansey had investigated any ideas that they’d had already, without much success. The attacks seemed random. The victims were unrelated, dissimilar, and there was no link between the locations, no apparent connection between the times except that they all occurred overnight. Even in Henrietta most crime happened at night, supernatural or otherwise, so nobody found that surprising.

He checked his watch, reflexively. His parents weren’t home, but he could still feel anxiety buzzing underneath his skin. They might call the house… it had happened before. They might hear from the neighbours. It wasn’t likely that the neighbours would bother to notice Adam’s movements, but it was _possible_.

Ronan threw himself off the front desk unceremoniously, and snatched up the bag. ‘Welp, guess that’s happy hour. Parrish?’

Gratefully, Adam straightened up and exchanged a fist bump each with Gansey and Blue before following Lynch’s receding figure through the library doors. He’d reached the silver BMW in the carpark by the time Adam made it out of the building, and was lazily revving the engine and giving the finger to bystanders. Adam waited for them to nervously disperse before he approached the car.

The bag was in the footwell, passenger side, and Adam pulled it open as soon as he climbed inside, closing the door and buckling his seatbelt with one hand. The book inside calmed his discomfort the second his fingers brushed the leather binding. He hauled it into his lap, trying to trap misaligned notes, ratty bookmarks, and loose pages inside.

He didn’t know if the book itself was magic. It felt like it was, whenever he touched it, or lost hours staring at the contents, but he wasn’t sure. _Binding_ was one of the very first spells he’d ever learned, but he’d never tried to cast it on this, in case the book rebuffed his magical advances.

He traced the symbols inside, in faded ink, and silently repeated the lines of text. Gansey had remarked, once, that Adam must have memorised half the book by this point, but neither Adam or Ronan had admitted that it was true. Basics were one thing… herbs and crystals and holding hands in candlelight, but Adam didn’t have the capacity for any of that. He wanted something that worked in the silence, in darkness, and when he was alone. He _needed_ it.

The car was still. Adam hadn’t realised. He looked up, at the empty, shaded, gravel lot, and down again, to his watch. It was later than he’d expected, again. Ronan had disappeared, he couldn’t say when, left him to read in silence, and even anxiety couldn’t steal the reassuring warmth the book had left nestled under his ribcage. He carefully replaced it in the bag, and climbed out of the car.

Lynch was a few dozen feet away, sitting on the graveyard fence, and whistling at the ravens perched nearby on tombstones. They watched him, heads tipped, but kept a wary distance. He accepted Adam’s fist bump with a bored nod, and Adam left.

It was a couple blocks further to Adam’s house. Ronan only ever brought him as far as the graveyard, but Adam didn’t remember how that had been established, how it had become customary. He was certain no words had been exchanged about it, because they didn’t speak much ever, let alone about Adam’s personal life. It didn’t surprise him, though. Ronan was as good at noticing things as he was good at hiding the fact that he did.

The house was quiet, as Adam had expected. There was a small, calming zero on the screen of the answering machine.

He drew symbols on the steamed glass in the shower, and turned the new lines over in his head. It was the first half of a levitation spell, well beyond his abilities, but he added it to his mental archive anyway. Mere snippets of spells were soothing, gratifying, even if it made him want more. He wiped the glass with his towel when he was finished, carefully scrubbing away any indication of what he’d drawn.

Dinner was cobbled together leftovers, barely-touched food his mother must have abandoned. Adam thought about his book, the weight and presence of it. The worn spine, the title disintegrated to nothing. Browned pages and the odd moth-eaten edge. He knew it was with Ronan, somewhere, a comforting combination that threatened to pull him into reverie.

He washed his dishes, cleaned the kitchen. There was time to study… more time than ever, if his parents really didn’t come back until tomorrow evening. He still couldn’t have risked bringing the book here, but homework would do. He flicked the kitchen light off as he stepped into the hall, and barely registered the soft creak of the hall cupboard before something struck the side of his head.

He was cold, slightly damp. It could have been from the shower. He could have fallen asleep in the kitchen. It was dark - he’d turned the lights off.

His arms ached, and sharp-edged pain sliced through his wrists, but he felt the headache the most. It sparked through his temples, down his neck, into his shoulders, and reminded him of the dark hallway. Someone, _something_ , had hit him.

Vampires? No, they couldn’t have gotten in the house. They wouldn’t have left him alive.

He was alive. Upright, even. Both of his arms were above his head, painfully straight. His wrists were caught in something, hooked overhead. It felt like there were knives digging into his skin. Experimentally, he moved his feet, and felt the slippery coolness shift around his toes. Dirt, and leaves. Gradually the trees surrounding him came into focus. At least he didn’t seem to be in one of the cemeteries, or another graveyard. He was tied to a tree, as far as he could tell, or at least dangling from one. He pushed his heels back far enough to find bark, and tried to lift some of the weight off his arms.

He must have been in the woods. It was probably the same night, but he could see the faint halo of the moon through a bank of clouds. Was it high? He wasn’t sure. Ronan would have been able to tell him what time it was, if he’d had the decency to be around.

He shifted his weight, and stifled a whine. He’d been here long enough for the pain to settle in his shoulders and back.

Something crunched, in the darkness. He struggled to turn his head at the sound of footsteps, behind the tree, and twisted away as a figure emerged into view.

They were cloaked, hooded. There was a band of black below the eyes, concealing most of the face. Humanoid, at the very least, but Adam couldn’t say more than that. He wondered if it was a demon. Sickly, he wondered if it was a _cultist_. The images Gansey had filched from the Coroner’s Office rippled behind his eyes. He didn’t want his skin shredded any more than usual, and he was entirely dedicated to keeping his eyeballs in his skull.

A hand - gloved - stilled him in the air, curled in the front of his sweatshirt. Adam didn’t say anything. Words had never gotten him anywhere before.

Admittedly, he should have been able to place his trust in Blue. She had a terrifying knack of knowing when something was going wrong, and saving their skins at the last moment. He’d been snatched from the very mouth of a vampire before, and this shouldn’t have been any different.

Except, at the time, he’d been with Gansey. There had been reasons she’d followed them, there were reasons for her concern. Adam didn’t think there was any reason she would know this time. He should have been at home, and nobody had any reason to imagine otherwise. They also didn’t have any way of checking.

The solution was relatively evident. Magic. He only knew a handful of spells that he’d manage under these circumstances. If he reversed _binding_ , maybe he could break loose from the tree, or the metal cutting into his skin. He tried to steady his breathing, unpleasantly aware of the proximity of the stranger. He could cast-

Gloved fingers grabbed his chin, turned his head. He was being inspected, for whatever reason, and it must have been unsatisfactory, because a moment later the stranger was digging something from the pocket of his coat.

He could cast _flame_ , but it was weak. He’d only used it on candles and paper, before, and if he set some tiny part of this individual on fire it wouldn’t cut him loose him in any useful way. He should have, he absolutely wished that he’d been able to learn _levitate_ before tonight.

Fingers, digging into his jaw again, and fabric being forced between his teeth. Adam grunted and twisted, regretted it when the pain shot down his arms, and the stranger knotted the fabric decisively behind his head.

‘Be patient.’ His voice was low. Deep enough to be a man’s, but too muffled for any accent or identifiable feature. ‘It will be over soon.’

Adam hissed at him quietly as he melted back into the shadows.

Was it sacrificial? They’d considered it, of course. If some band of human followers were killing people for the good of their deity. Adam hadn’t specifically imagined that they might have been tied up and left to be slaughtered, but it seemed to have growing validity as a hypothesis. There weren’t many signs of _consumption_ , that had been the main discredit. Just… desecration.

He wheezed faintly into the fabric stuffed in his mouth. God, he hoped Blue’s spidey senses were tingling. This wasn’t how he wanted to die. He _didn’t_ _want_ to die.

He focused on the branch above him, taking some portion of his weight. Reverse _binding_ , and he could break it. The words floated in his head, like the words to a song, like a tune he’d spent months humming to himself. He’d broken bigger things. Tombstones. Chalices. Weapons. In the heat of conflict. In a crisis. He didn’t want to wait until the monster was chewing on his liver before he pulled it off tonight.

He heard a noise, distant. Soft. Like a small animal creeping along through the undergrowth. His breathing quickened. He wondered if he was likely to taste bad, or if all humans were much the same to centuries-old demon tastebuds.

There was no other indication of movement, but Adam had turned his attention more desperately to the branch above his head. His first warning of company was when a shadow stepped between two trees, only a dozen feet dead ahead. He flinched back instinctively, head knocking against the tree trunk, and struggled.

‘Adam.’ Ronan’s voice, hushed, startled him. The indistinct figure moved towards him sharply. ‘Jesus.’

He had barely a second to process Lynch’s presence before the ground sprung up, closing on Lynch from every direction, and spraying leaf litter and dirt through the dense gloom. Adam heard Ronan’s snarl, over the sound of wood groaning and dirt raining down. He blinked away dust, eyes watering, and automatically tried to track the motion of the trap. There was a net, hardly visible in the mass of darkness, and above it was the rope, moving upwards. The high fork of a tree, where it slithered for leverage, and then snaked back down towards the ground, some kind of coil or mechanism at the base. The stranger materialised beside Adam’s tree, half hidden, the long metallic barrel of a rifle angled up towards the swinging net.

A _hunter_.

Adam’s wrists were stinging viciously. The fabric was digging into the corners of his mouth. He’d hardly realised he was moving.

The asshole had come after Ronan. He was trying to _kill_ Ronan.

He shifted his concentration, and the fork, high in the other tree, sturdy and stable, snapped. The net, and contents, slammed into the ground, and the stranger reared back, obviously considering slinking back into the darkness.

He couldn’t run. Adam knew that, so he must have known it too. Ronan would catch up easily, and he might have been too angry to even toy with the bastard before he snapped him into pieces.

Instead, the stranger lurched forward, and sank into a crouch. The rifle moved, trying to target Ronan as he attempted to wrestle free from the net. _Silver bullets?_ Adam doubted he’d be able to break the gun with _binding_. He was too far away, his aim wasn’t reliable enough to ignite the gunpowder with _flame_ , and even if he did, the bullet could still hit Lynch.

A form, almost indistinguishable, launched loose from the net. The gun went off, and Adam shrank back, cursing the pain in his wrists and arms. The two shapes collided, something went flying, he suspected it was the gun. Ronan was faster than a vampire, Adam had learned, and just as strong. He was second only to Blue in fighting prowess. A human didn’t stand a chance with him in combat, and that was presumably why the stranger retreated. One hand caught Adam’s shoulder, holding him in Lynch’s immediate trajectory, and the other scraped between his arm and his neck, a heavy, uncomfortable closeness. Adam felt the line of metal across his neck, the faint catch of a serrated blade.

He saw Ronan stop, after finally untangling his foot from the net. Watchful, but motionless. Adam held his breath.

The stranger was practically wedged between the tree and Adam’s back. Close enough for _growth_ to throw him off, if Adam was careful. Now Ronan was here, he had a way out. He had a way to survive.

He needed to break the bark, and that was work. The spell pushed, and pushed, from the green tree core outwards. Ronan’s face wasn’t visible, but Adam could feel him waiting.

‘The gun.’ The stranger’s voice, so near his face, made Adam want to shift away, but he was paralysingly aware of the pressure on his throat. ‘Pick it up, throw it over here.’

Why use Adam as bait? There was one reason, and Ronan would think of it too, but the stranger wouldn’t know. It had to be more simple than that. Adam was the isolated one, the easy target. Adam was the one the hunter would have followed from the graveyard, if he’d been tracking Ronan. It had been chance, and bad luck. Misfortune.

Ronan retrieved the gun, slow and cautious. He lowered his hand, to throw it underarm. To gently toss it within reach.

The growth spell punctured the bark, with a noise like snapping branches, and Adam sank all of his concentration into making the little branch twist out and tangle with the back of the hunter’s collar. The knife jerked against his throat, digging in, the world blurred, and a breath of wind brushed across his cheek and ear.

He heard a loud, hollow thud, like wood blocks smashing together. The knife wasn’t on his throat anymore, but Ronan was in front of him. He’d grabbed the knife-wielding arm and twisted it away from Adam’s throat, and slammed the hunter’s head sideways into the trunk of the tree. Adam could feel the weight of his collapsing body pulling on one shoulder, and Ronan’s swift attempts to dislodge it.

He plucked the knife from the stranger’s limp grasp, tossed it aside, and shoved the arm off Adam’s shoulder, scowling as it jostled Adam’s footing. The body slumped to the ground, mostly out of sight, and Ronan leaned over to search it, his waist against Adam’s hip.

With a victorious grunt, he straightened, and reached up to Adam’s hands. ‘Shrimpdicked fuckhole.’

One of Adam’s hands fell, freed from the metal, and he dug his fingers into Ronan’s shoulder. The other dropped, but the cuff came with it, and Ronan spent another minute cursing at the lock before it opened.

The fabric was too tight to pull off by himself. He waited for Ronan to untie it at the back, cursing more.

‘Thanks.’ Gingerly, he stepped away from the tree. He found the knife, by the glint of metal, and shook off the leaves as he picked it up. The rifle was further away, a long sleek shape against the ground, and he picked that up too, reluctantly releasing Lynch’s shoulder to reach it. The ground was impossible to see clearly, in muted moonlight, but his feet were too cold for it to be painful even if he did step on something unpleasant.

Lynch was standing by the hunter’s body, unmoving. Adam stopped.

‘Ronan.’ He knew Lynch was thinking about killing the man. And it was probably a man, after all. Most hunters were. They were the most prone to lumping vampires, demons, werewolves and other supernatural creatures together into a single homogenous category of badness. Humans were low on the food chain, in supernatural terms, and they were ruthlessly bitter about it.

Ronan had never killed a human. He rarely killed anything. He’d dusted a vampire or several, he might even have helped Blue put an end to a couple of minor demons, but he’d never harmed a person, no matter what they’d done. Nothing with a soul, Adam expected, though it was arguable if this hunter would even have one.

Kill a demon, even if it was a child. Banish a ghost, even if it was innocent. Hunt Ronan, because he’s a werewolf.

Ronan answered, without turning around. ‘He knows where you live.’

Adam shifted his weight. His muscles ached. ‘So would anyone. Come on.’

Begrudgingly, Lynch turned. He caught up in two strides, took the knife and tucked it into his belt, took the gun and swung the strap over one shoulder. One of his hands tapped across Adam’s lower back lightly, a cursory check to see if Adam would move away. When he didn’t, Ronan looped an arm around his waist and lifted him slightly. It took the weight off his feet, preventing any substantial damage from whatever he managed to stumble across or trip over.

The BMW was slanted diagonally from the edge of the road at the border of the woods. Adam didn’t recognise the specific stretch of road, but it was narrow, enclosed with trees, and dark. Definitely out of town. He pulled open the passenger door and eased inside, wincing as the interior light blinked on. Ronan slammed into the driver’s seat a moment later.

‘Here.’ They were on the road before Ronan spoke. He tugged something out of the backseat, and Adam reached for it hungrily. The bag. His book. Already a pleasant surge of familiarity.

He cradled it blindly to his chest. ‘How did you find me?’

He’d brought the book, so he knew he was coming after Adam. He’d showed up, so he’d known something was wrong. But he’d been alone.

Ronan shrugged. ‘I got a call.’

Adam stared at him. He didn’t need to ask. He didn’t have a phone, and Ronan wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t have trusted it.

‘From the landline.’ Ronan sighed. ‘So I assumed you were in mortal danger and went to the house.’

To the house. Adam’s heart rate picked up. If the hunter had damaged anything-

‘I didn’t find anything.’ Ronan added, pointedly. ‘Except a note.’

He gestured, vaguely, in Adam’s direction, and after some searching Adam found the scrap of paper in a ball under his feet. It was crumpled, emphatically. The wrinkles didn’t shift when he flattened it out with his palm. Ronan had obviously crushed it in his fist more than once. In printed capital letters it said; _I found something. Come to Black Diamond if you can. Adam._

Adam didn’t comment. Ronan had clearly understood it was a trap. Ronan had also clearly still not told anyone, or at least, had gone ahead by himself.

But, again, both of them knew why he would.

They passed the _Welcome to Henrietta_ sign. Adam let his chin rest on the top of his book.

Ronan asked; ‘Where do you want to go?’

He answered; ‘Yours.’

Their house was dark, also quiet. Gansey must have been inside, somewhere, possibly arguing himself to sleep. Adam followed Lynch upstairs, his feet leaving faint dirt outlines on the carpet.

He pulled clothing from Ronan’s drawers, anything that looked like the right combination of comfortable and tolerably clean. Showered, again. Rolled his clothing into a ball and shoved it to the centre of Ronan’s desk, next to the bag with his book, so he remembered to wash them first thing in the morning.

He didn’t need the book, here. It was enough to crawl onto Ronan’s bed, languid with sleep and heat from the shower, and sit there, pulling the comforter up around his waist.

Lynch pushed one knee into the foot of the mattress and prodded his eyebrow experimentally. His skin was tight around the cut, but the bleeding had long since stopped, and the shower had taken the sting out of it.

His wrists were less forgiving. The cuffs had carved them up, mostly superficially, and stripped the skin off in places. He clenched his teeth while Ronan doused them in antiseptic and bandaged them.

But that was it. He’d had better days, and he’d undeniably had worse.

The main issue was the hunter. He had to be removed. It would probably come down to Gansey and Blue, doing what they did best and driving him out, but until then somebody would need to stop Ronan from being characteristically reckless.

Ronan was a competent fighter, and the magic had worked, but if the hunter’s first strategy had been kidnapping and the threat of murder, it didn’t seem wise to let him make a second attempt.

Adam’s alarm didn’t go off in the morning, but he woke up. He didn’t have his watch on, for some reason, and he was facedown in Ronan’s pillows. It seemed like a cruel cosmic reminder of how pleasant it would be to just not get out of bed, possibly ever.

He rolled over, and sat up. Ronan was asleep, surprisingly, on the sofa. The book was nearby, on his desk. Adam allowed himself a few minutes of silent exultation.

He stood up, balled up a rogue sock, and cheerfully threw it at the back of Ronan’s head. Lynch growled wordlessly and slung up a defensive arm without waking.

Their washer was downstairs, but they had a laundry rather than a basement, and Adam hated it significantly less than his own house. He ran a quick wash, but read while he waited, so it felt like mere moments had passed before it pinged and he swapped the clothing into the dryer. It wasn’t economical, but Gansey and Lynch knew he needed to do it.

He returned to Ronan’s room, and rummaged through more drawers to find something remotely appropriate for school. Lynch could get away with anything he wanted to, because it was expected, but Adam’s range was considerably smaller. He wouldn’t risk anything atypical, and he definitely couldn’t risk anything that said _I took these clothes from Lynch’s bedroom_.

Ronan hadn’t moved. It wasn’t unusual for him to show up late, or skip school completely, but someone needed to explain the night’s events to Gansey, and it wouldn’t be Adam.

He nudged Ronan’s shoulder, with increasing force, and eventually kneed him gently in the ribs.

‘Fuckoff.’ Lynch responded, muffled but amiable.

‘Ronan.’

He rolled over and stretched, arms above his head, fingers to toes. Then he sat up and shook out his shoulders, and Adam frowned at him. It was, frankly, obscene, and he’d never gotten used to it.

With some evidence that Ronan was awake, he went back downstairs, and passed into the kitchen, searching for a bowl and vaguely edible cereal. It was vital to check the milk. He’d never made the mistake of drinking it without checking, but Gansey had, and he’d been miserable for weeks. It was more than likely that Ronan had already realised it had gone bad, and just didn’t warn him, so Adam never took the risk.

Sluggish footsteps on the stairs resolved into Gansey, blearily joining him in the kitchen.

‘Adam.’ He smiled, took a second look, and stopped smiling. He didn’t say anything else, and Adam didn’t attempt any response beyond a mild nod.

Ronan followed him in, a few minutes later, fetched cereal and settled next to Adam at the counter. He didn’t react until Adam knocked their knees together.

‘Uh. Oh.’ He looked up at Gansey vacantly. ‘Morning. There’s a hunter in town.’

‘What?’ Gansey’s attention snapped to him instantly. ‘What?’

‘Mm.’ Ronan supplied. ‘The- y’know. Werewolf-hunting kind.’

‘Shit.’ Gansey swung around the counter. He touched Ronan’s head, then Adam’s, in passing, as if to ensure they were both actually present and intact, and hurtled away into the house, shouting; ‘Where’s my phone?’

They took longer than Adam to get ready. It was partly because they didn’t need to walk, or take the bus, he figured. It was mostly because they didn’t care about school as much. Gansey was careful about it, on the rare occasion Adam was there in the morning, but Ronan had (probably intentionally) sent him into a downward spiral.

Adam used the opportunity to read, in their living room. To memorise the rest of the _levitation_ spell, to start on a _feather_ spell. They were similar, but not identical. Reduction of mass was not equivalent to energy expended lifting mass.

He only climbed up the stairs to get the bag back, and safely stow the book, but he stopped halfway up. They were arguing. It wasn’t uncommon.

‘-whatever you want. That’s not how this works.’

‘What if next time it’s you? Or Matthew? He went there _first_. That’s fucked up.’

‘We can get rid of him, Ronan, we’re not executioners.’

‘We hunt _monsters_. It’ll happen somewhere else, to someone else, or he’ll circle back around. Let me deal with it now.’

‘No.’

‘His _house_ , Gansey. His fucking _house_.’

Adam retreated. He heard his own footsteps, and wondered if Ronan heard them too.


	2. The first turn event

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> out of order

Gansey’s expression crumbled. ‘I can’t go with you.’

Blue didn’t immediately speak, but Adam suspected it was because she was withholding more exasperation than disappointment. She answered; ‘I know.’

‘I would.’ Gansey said, stricken. ‘I swear I would.’

‘I know.’ She repeated patiently. ‘I’ll be fine.’

Not for the first time, Adam wished he had something, anything, to offer. If it was a shorter trip, if his parents were gone for longer, if he had any money at all, a passport, anything -

‘I can stay with Ronan.’ He suggested, quietly.He wasn’t sure if Gansey would even countenance that - he definitely didn’t think Ronan would be thrilled about it. He almost hoped neither of them had heard him, for the second or two it took Gansey to respond.

‘You don’t -’ He stopped, shook his head slightly. ‘I can’t leave him.’

‘I’ll be okay.’ Blue said again, watching them both.

The three of them stood, for a few moments, in silence. Adam could feel Gansey’s uncertainty - his shifting anxiety. He wanted to go with Blue, to face the Council. She needed his help. He wanted to stay here, to protect Ronan. He never left Ronan to do this alone. There was nothing Adam could add, nothing else he could say to be more convincing.

Gansey caught his breath, shook his head, moved his glasses. Sighed, and fretted, and finally closed his eyes. Slowly, he asked; ‘Can you do that?’

‘I can do it.’ Adam answered, leaving Ronan’s likely reaction unacknowledged. He could see Blue’s expression turning serious, reluctantly hopeful. He didn’t know if there was a way - no, there was always a way his father could find out, but this was the only thing he could offer.

When Gansey opened his eyes, he looked miserable. ‘I can drive you over there.I need - we need to leave soon.’He stopped, mumbled a few more unintelligible comments. ‘Is this sa- okay, for you?’

Adam fought the desire to wince, and nodded.

‘All right.’Gansey shook himself into action.‘All right. Do you need anything from your house? I’ll take you up the hill first.’To Blue he said; ‘I’ll pick you up from home.’

He moved, scooping up the papers and books on the table. Blue caught Adam’s arm, squeezed. ’Thank you.’

He tried to smile at her.

The reality really began to sink in as they drove to Ronan’s place. Adam knew, had already measured the consequences. He would see the wolf. He would be in the basement. He would have to try to be as gentle as Gansey was with Ronan.

But Ronan skipped school whenever this happened. Adam couldn’t predict what he would be like, how volatile, dangerous he might be. He didn’t know if Ronan would refuse to let him be there, or if he’d be furious with Gansey for leaving him. He didn’t know if Ronan would despise him for this, any more than he already did.

‘I always stay with him.’ Gansey explained. His hands fidgeted, restlessly, on the steering wheel. ‘There’s a sofa in the basement. You have to make sure the door is locked from the inside, just in case, but - but he won’t get out of the cage. He won’t - and he knows how to do the rest. And -’ He audibly swallowed. ‘And there’s a freezer upstairs in the laundry with pieces of meat. It might - if you put one in there sometimes that helps… I’m sorry. It’s - it’s not easy to watch. I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t leave him for anything else.’

‘We’ll be okay.’ Adam assured him. Ronan was frustrating at best, sometimes infuriating, but Adam owed him enough to do this properly.

‘He’ll sleep most of tomorrow.’ Gansey added. ‘There’s food in the house, but we usually go home so - if you have to leave before he’s awake it’ll be okay. He - he might drop you off on the way home.’

‘Don’t worry about us.’ Adam said. He left the rest unspoken. _Do what you can with the Council. Bring Blue back._

The Pig turned into the driveway, winding up through trees towards Ronan’s house. Ronan gleefully called it “the horror movie house” and Adam understood why. It was circled with forest, distant from other property, other humans, with old-fashioned shuttered windows and three floors of barely furnished, ageing rooms. Adam liked it. He liked the trees and the absence of people. He liked Gansey’s superstitious barriers against the supernatural, and Ronan’s heavily reinforced barriers against reality.

Gansey stopped the car at the top of the driveway, a few feet from the rickety steps to the front door. He climbed out, started for the house, and faltered. When Adam caught up, Gansey clutched his wrist, looking wretched. ‘Take care of him for me.’

‘I will.’

He watched Gansey hesitate one final time, and turn back for the car.

The door wasn’t locked. Ronan had expected them - expected Gansey. He was sitting on the stairs inside, watched silently as Adam locked the door behind himself and lowered his backpack to the floor.

‘He’s not coming.’ Ronan observed.

‘He’s going with Blue.’ There was electricity to the house, Adam knew, but none of the lights were on. Ronan was half in shadow. ‘I’m staying here.’

It was necessary to be firm, with Ronan.Adam was aware of that.But here, in these circumstances, it felt worse than it ever had.

Long seconds passed before Ronan replied; ‘You don’t need to go downstairs.’

Adam stepped closer, examining him. He was dressed roughly normally, in jeans and a t-shirt, but without shoes. He was strangely, uncomfortably quiet. He was also flushed, red splotches across both cheeks, his forehead, and the bridge of his nose. He was holding a bottle, but Adam couldn’t make out what it said. He wondered if Ronan often drank on the full moon. If it helped, somehow, or if he just didn’t care enough stop himself.

‘How long do you have?’

‘Hour.’ Ronan started to stand, braced himself against the wall. Adam noted more colour along his arm, his hand. Noticed, too, that he was very faintly trembling. ‘Maybe.’

Adam reached out automatically, to steady him. ‘What do you need?’

Apparently misinterpreting the motion, Ronan handed over the alcohol. ‘Nothing.’ He grimaced. ‘From you.’

Water, Adam thought. Meat. Maybe a wet towel.

Ronan slid past him, into the living room, and angled straight towards the fireplace. There was another bottle on the mantlepiece, but at least it seemed to be almost empty. Adam left the one Ronan had handed him in the kitchen on his way past. The laundry was just adjacent, mostly taken up by the slab freezer. He tentatively raised the lid, only to discover that what Gansey had meant by meat was actually huge roughly hewn pieces of animal carcass, individually wrapped into ominous plastic parcels. Each chunk was around two feet long, almost a foot wide, frozen completely solid and unlikely to thaw overnight. He couldn’t guess what kind of animal it had been, but it did raise the question of the size of the wolf they were designed to feed.

He carried the meat past Ronan, who was glowering either in accusation or discomfort, and forced himself over the threshold of the basement stairs. There was a door at the top, and a second door at the bottom, both metal plated, both bolted and dead bolted. There were lights set into the ceiling, metal strips on the stairs and walls.The sofa was a squat two seater, but it looked comfortable enough. It sat opposite the cage, against the wall by the lower door, beside a battered chest of drawers and a lamp.

Adam had never been into the basement before. He’d pictured something different, a makeshift cell, but there was nothing temporary about the design. He didn’t know if this place used to belong to another werewolf, or something else, but this was what had brought them here, guided by one of Gansey’s visions. A place Gansey could keep Ronan safe, could contain him. The cage occupied most of the space, stone walled on three sides and metal bars on the last, each as thick as the end of a baseball bat and barely a hand’s width apart. The gate was open. There was chains on the floor. Adam felt predictably but unpleasantly sick at the sight of them.

He unwrapped the meat, reluctantly left it sitting on the plastic on the floor of the cage, and ascended the stairs.

Ronan had finished the second bottle he’d found.He was leaning on the mantlepiece, head lowered.

They’d only really occupied one room when they’d been working on the house - or rather, according to Gansey, when Gansey had been working on the house and Ronan had been procrastinating. There was a mattress leaning against one wall but still wrapped in a fitted sheet, a second, equally tired sofa, and odd, assorted boxes of things that seemed like a combination of Gansey’s less exciting relics and discoveries and Ronan’s junk and discarded toys.

There was, to Adam’s surprise, an assortment of linen and spare clothing, in an arguably decent state. He tipped the mattress over, patting it cautiously for dust and spiders, and shook a blanket out over the top. There were enough towels, too, for him to fold and place one in the bathroom and soak another for Ronan - if he would conceivably take it.

He was already less resistant than Adam had expected, but things hadn’t been as stilted between them since Sheridan - since Blue, really. Even his malice about Gansey’s waning interest hardly stung, by now. But he was close to being lethal, and Ronan always seemed the most dangerous when he was being the least threatening.

He’d moved downstairs by the time Adam reached the living room, and was kneeling on the floor of the cage. Adam hesitated before entering, observing the handful of chain he was holding and the way that he was rocking, slightly, forward and backward.

‘Ronan.’

Ronan looked up sharply enough to startle him.His eyes were half closed, red around the edges. He kept rocking. Adam stepped towards him automatically.

‘I forgot t’do the - ’ He lowered the chain, unsteadily. ‘- locks but I can…’

The colour had spread, unevenly, making him look feverish. He’d tried and failed to strip, leaving his shirt tangled around his neck and his jeans unbuttoned.

Adam crouched in front of him. ‘I’ll sort it out.’

Halfheartedly, Ronan attempted to straighten out the chain. There was a ring of solid metal attached to one end, and the other was threaded through several metal loops sunk into the floor. The ring didn’t open, but it was a baffling size, too large for Ronan’s limbs or neck but too small to fit over his shoulders.

‘Gotta pin it.’ Ronan mumbled, trying to put it over his head. ‘Or it’ll come loose during.’

‘Stop.’ Adam pulled it away, and hastily lifted Ronan’s shirt the rest of the way from his neck. ‘Here.’

Ronan made an answering noise of frustration. His skin was hot to the touch, damp with sweat. Adam placed the ring on his shoulders, and wedged it with the wet towel.

‘Can you take off your jeans?’ He examined the cage, briefly, a second time.It seemed bigger, around Ronan’s hunched figure. Empty, except for the chains and the hunk of meat. The idea of leaving him here was unappealing, to say the least. Adam wasn’t sure how Gansey would have been able to face it every month.

Ronan looked momentarily vexed to discover he was still wearing them, but obligingly leaned over to try and remove them. The scar on his shoulder, starkly threaded with silver, was substantially larger than Adam had realised, but still indistinct, giving no indication of teeth marks or claws.In the second, low on his leg, the punctures were markedly more evident, but the two parallel lines never curved inwards to meet as a bite mark might have. The wolf had been big. Ronan, presumably, had been small.

He shifted back onto his knees, but stayed curled over, breathing ragged. Adam tossed the jeans in the direction of his discarded shirt, but didn’t move. Ronan was still human. He was shivering with discomfort. He was in pain. Adam didn’t know what to do.

What would Gansey do, under these circumstances?What did he usually do?

It wasn’t possible to ask Ronan, clearly preoccupied. Adam needed to figure it out. Worse, he needed to actually do it.

He curled a hand around the back of Ronan’s neck, carefully, above the towel, and squeezed. ‘It’ll be over soon.’

Ronan’s breathing hitched, a foreign noise of pain.He leaned into Adam’s shoulder, startlingly heavy, overwhelming warm. ‘When I wake up **-** ’

‘I’ll be here.’

Something in Ronan’s body cracked with enough force and volume to make Adam flinch. His grip tightened. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want this to happen.

Ronan groaned through gritted teeth, and shoved him slightly with one white-knuckled fist. Unwillingly, he straightened, pressing a hand to Ronan’s face in a poor semblance of comfort as he withdrew it. He could feel Ronan’s jaw moving - shifting, and it turned his stomach.

He chained the gate, but didn’t immediately move to bar the basement doors. It felt wrong to turn away and leave Ronan curled up on the floor, but it was worse to watch, possible to distinguish the bones sliding under his skin, muffled whimpers and curses and the uneven pattern of his breathing.

One of his shoulders crunched, changing his shape. The transformation was faster as it progressed, with only seconds to see dark hair swiftly erupting through Ronan’s skin, the twisting, cracking reconstruction of his hips. He’d dropped his forehead to the ground at some point, but enough of his cheek and lower jaw was visible to make Adam turn away, fighting nausea.

The whimpering broke to a whine, cut with panting that echoed in the basement. When Adam looked back, retreating to the staircase, what he could see was almost entirely wolf, hunched up exactly as Ronan had been.

He climbed the stairs with his legs shaking, and tried to focus on locking the door. Perhaps he hadn’t thought enough about what to expect. He’d known it would be unsettling. Even watching a vampire shift was uncomfortable, regardless of fear. And this was worse - obviously worse, significantly worse - because it was Ronan, and it was torture, and there was nothing Adam could do to help him.

He descended, slowly, and eased the lower door shut.

The room seemed quieter.At least the whining had stopped. He wished his stomach would settle.

He could see the wolf, segmented by the bars. Hear it breathing. His brain struggled, moment to moment, to comprehend that it was still Ronan. He couldn’t quite accept it.

Abruptly, it launched itself towards the cage with a snarl, and Adam fell back against the wall, folding up instinctively. With a metallic rattle the chain stopped it from reaching the bars, but Adam heard its mouth snap shut viciously anyway. It had noticed his presence, and continued to snap and snarl angrily, glaring at him with orange eyes.

It wasn’t too different from what Adam had imagined. Black haired, mostly, but there was a lighter colour underneath, flickering into view as the animal jumped and fought the chain. It was bigger than a real wolf, Adam would have guessed, at least three feet tall and incomprehensibly large from head to haunches. The metal ring had become a suitable collar, the towel dislodged while it jumped and swiped. It was long-legged, almost rangy, young. Lore suggested that the wolf would reflect Ronan, but he and Gansey usually behaved as though it was separate from him - a different entity. Ronan certainly didn’t claim to control it.

Slowly, Adam righted himself against the wall. The wolf followed the motion, tracking him along the length of the cage, but he edged towards the sofa anyway. He didn’t know if it would help to speak. Did Gansey talk to the wolf, to Ronan? Was it typically aggressive, or would it have been calmer if Gansey had been in Adam’s place?

There were blankets, more clothes and various other supplies in the chest next to the sofa. Adam wrapped one of the blankets around his shoulders like he could recede into the shadows, but, incredibly, the wolf already seemed to have tired of him. It turned to investigate the frozen meat, with a disdainful huff, and swiftly sank into it with the most intimidating set of teeth Adam had ever seen.

For a long time, he stayed still, reluctant to incite its anger again, but the noise of it eating was enough to cover much of what he did. He tried, ineffectively, to study for a couple of hours, pausing often to watch the wolf tearing away at what still largely resembled ice. It was undeniably menacing, but there was something unexpectedly familiar about the shape and the noise of it, that made it feel like having possession of an excessively oversized dog. Adam didn’t feel as though it was a monster.

He ate snacks that Gansey had squirrelled into the drawers, and poked through an old tome of legends, and eventually dozed lightly and uneasily through the early hours of morning.

He woke up once to the sound of the wolf devastating a piece of animal bone, and later to the wolf pissing, apparently spitefully, near where the chain was anchored. Ronan’s clothes, which Adam had carried out, were thankfully safe, but the towel was unlucky collateral. He silently hoped that it wasn’t a particularly well-liked belonging.

After the meat was gone and the wolf had paced and sniffed and scratched and whined and panted for several more hours, even it resigned itself to rest, curling up in the far corner of the cage.

The room was quiet.The wolf seemed calm. Adam didn’t intend to sleep, because he didn’t want to leave Ronan alone, but an undisturbed doze dropped quickly into fatigue-heavy slumber.

He woke up when the chain started clattering.

He could groggily identify that the wolf was whipping around, again, furious and noisy. It seemed wilder, more violent than earlier, both ears pinned back and teeth bared. Adam tried to search for what had aggravated it while staying still enough to avoid attracting its attention.

It was growling, snapping at air. It took him a few moments to realise it was whimpering, too.

He sat up, skin prickling, and then shoved aside the blanket. His watch read 5.13 - the wolf was changing back.

He had expected the reverse of the process, but he hadn’t contemplated the sound. The wolf, like Ronan, trapped and in pain, perhaps unable to understand what was happening to it. Did it remember? If it was something Ronan didn’t remember, did it remember itself? Or did it wake up every full moon with no knowledge of where it was or what it was?

Two more nights, Adam realised sickly, easing towards the cage warily. For God knows how long, unless Gansey really did find a way to fix the curse.

There was a crack, and the wolf made a noise Adam couldn’t put words to. He shut his eyes, tried to keep his breathing steady. He desperately wanted to see Ronan again. He thought, for the first time, he properly understood Gansey’s desire to protect him.

He pulled the blanket off the sofa and tangled his hands in it, trying to think about something other than the wolf. What did he do when Ronan was back? Get him to the shower, first. Get him water, because he’d been stupid enough not to provide some overnight. Message Gansey to make sure he knew Ronan was all right. He wouldn’t consider leaving… he didn’t think he could. If his father realised - fuck, he couldn’t worry about it now.

Maybe this was why Ronan had been so angry. Maybe he resented that Adam seemed to have a choice, where he didn’t, and still refused to choose differently.

The jangling died away, suddenly. Adam forced his eyes open. The wolf had dropped to the floor, still twisting and snarling, but it was already deep into changing back. There was saliva and pink foam streaking its face, and Adam knew it was bleeding, even if he didn’t know how.

The snarl descended into a growl, and further into a whine, before even that fragmented into stuttering breaths and the occasional querulous high note.

A wave of motion enveloped most of the hair. The legs lengthened, snapped and slotted back into place. The snout receded, along with the teeth, and the odd noise became something more familiar - a ragged, human sob. It was Ronan, almost completely, but Adam stalled with his hand on the gate, his throat thick with doubt.

_I’ll be here._

He moved the chain, slightly, to find the padlock, and Ronan looked up. Or, rather, the wolf did, fixing Adam with the same orange bladed glare. The wolf, occupying Ronan’s body. It was strange to consider, particularly as Adam suspected they weren’t at all separate creatures.

A shoulder blade moved, and Ronan folded himself tighter into a ball. Adam yanked the chain away and pushed open the gate. He dodged the damp ground, shards of bone distributed across the floor, the coiled links of chain, and slung the blanket over Ronan, cloaking him in it as much as it was possible.

‘Hey.’ He lifted Ronan’s head both hands, fielding a surge of anxiety when Lynch didn’t respond. His eyes were closed. There was dried blood on his cheeks and mouth, as well as the flecks of spit and blood from the wolf’s frenzy. Adam suspected the wolf had bled while chewing the bone. When Adam removed the metal collar and placed it on the floor he found the bruises underneath, another parting gift. It wasn’t enough that the transformation itself hurt. Though it was logical that Ronan would have its injuries, too, it still felt like an unnecessary cruelty.

‘C’mon.’ Adam rolled his head slightly, searching for any kind of response. Ronan should have been awake, like the wolf had been awake. ‘Please.’

Adam rolled him, gently, until Ronan’s head was resting on his leg. He brushed the hair back from Ronan’s forehead, concern building beneath his ribcage. At least he was still breathing, and Adam could feel his pulse rabbiting under his skin. Gansey hadn’t said anything about this - why would he? It might have been normal. He probably expected Adam not to panic.

There was a wheeze, of a kind, as reality appeared to reassert itself, and Ronan opened bloodshot eyes. ‘Fuck.’

His eyes were blue, if the swearing hadn’t been enough of an assurance. Distantly, Adam noted the overpowering relief, bordering on elation. It was counterbalanced nicely with an awareness that the cage, and Ronan, stank of sweat, raw meat, and faintly of dog piss. That was bound to infuriate Ronan when he realised.

‘You okay?’ Adam continued brushing his hair back, uncertainly. ‘Ronan?’

He didn’t answer, but he caught some of Adam’s trouser leg and curled his fingers in, drifting back towards sleep.

Gently, Adam touched the back of Ronan’s neck, the top of his spine. His skin was cooling fast, and remarkably, the bruises seemed to be changing colour. Healing must have had some role in the transformation, Adam reasoned, or the wolf would never function. ‘Can you hear me?’

He mumbled a concession, rolling closer.

‘Are you okay?’

More silence, but Adam wasn’t sure if it was because he wasn’t listening or because the answer was negative. He didn’t blame Ronan, either way. His own nerves were frayed by fatigue and anxiety. A proper bed and a dreamless sleep felt irresistibly attractive. He found it unexpectedly difficult to stop touching Ronan, reassuring himself that everything was where it should have been. He seemed smaller, than both the wolf and himself. Fragile, in comparison.

Adam didn’t know how old Ronan actually was. Not older than him, perhaps not older than Gansey. Too young for this, and far too young to have maybe a year of it behind him. The scar etched down over his shoulder blade, creeping towards his spine, smooth dips and hard lines of scar tissue under Adam’s fingers. He’d been younger when Gansey found him, and the implication was he’d already had a recognised problem. There were questions that Adam had always had about it, that he’d known he wasn’t able to ask. They were more frustrating now, burning at the forefront of his thoughts.

His fingers brushed something sharp and slick in Ronan’s hair, and he extracted a piece of bone with a dull grimace. The wolf would punch straight through a person with a mouth like that. It would have been a miracle if he’d never hurt anyone before.

‘How did this happen?’ Adam asked, out loud. He meant the bone, but he meant Ronan, too. He wasn’t expecting more than the hum of acknowledgement he received as answer for both.

Gradually, Ronan started to stir. He pulled at the fabric of Adam’s trousers, weakly, in an attempt to obtain a more comfortable pillow, and muttered unintelligibly barring a few choice swear words. He was remarkably, upsettingly pliable.

‘Can you stand?’

Slowly, he tested his weight on one hand, and began to push himself up. He recognised Adam’s presence, evidently, even understood what had been said, but there was an absence to the response. An inability to engage, perhaps, with the detail of the situation.

Adam pulled the blanket around him, helped balance and steady him as he started to get upright. ‘Think you can make it upstairs?’

A shower was integral, at this point, but if Ronan wasn’t ready, the very least Adam could do was get him to the sofa.

Ronan hummed, probably in disdain.

He seemed to wake up further as Adam made him climb the stairs, until he was moving fairly well, though with his head lowered. Adam was the one who tripped, working the upper door open, and dragged them both sprawling to the living room floor. He climbed back up, reddening.

‘Jesus. I’m sorry.’

Ronan followed him, vacantly. ‘Where we goin’?’

‘Up to the shower.’ Adam started on the second staircase, holding Ronan up as Ronan focused on holding up the blanket. He guessed Gansey would never have made such a mess out of things, but if he could at least get Ronan clean and into bed - some place comfortable to sleep, it wouldn’t be too bad. He was almost relying on Ronan not remembering this, later, so he could avoid Gansey’s disappointment. It would sting, to never be entrusted with Ronan’s care again, even if he never wanted to be.

Released, in the bathroom, Ronan made a spectacular effort to assist by spinning both taps at random and stepping into the shower still wrapped in the blanket. He leaned on the wall and sank down immediately, unbothered by the fluctuating temperature. Adam fixed the water, and tried to work the blanket loose, failing miserably. He was soaked to the shoulder, and Ronan was trying to fall asleep again, when it occurred to him that maybe Gansey just let him sleep until he’d recovered enough to do this by himself. He slumped against the glass, feeling like a fool.

‘Gansey doesn’t do this, does he?’ He sighed, brushing rivulets of pink water from Ronan’s forehead. ‘That would be insane.’

Ronan made a noise of agreement, muffled but somehow still amused. ‘Insane.’

‘I hate you.’ He used the blanket to scrub Ronan’s face, mildly. ‘I hate both of us.’

‘M’too.’ Ronan answered amiably, unfolding slightly to turn his head. ‘Both of us.’

‘Close your eyes.’ Adam told him, reaching for the generic soap bottles overhead. ‘Try not to drown.’

It didn’t take him long to wash out Ronan’s hair, clean his neck, shoulders and back. He wasn’t completely sure why he did it, except that he’d already embarrassed himself, and Ronan seemed comfortable enough, and this was what they did, had done, before Ronan had lost his temper and cut Adam loose. Stupid things that didn’t make much sense, because Ronan didn’t like normal and Adam didn’t know what it was. It was funny. He did it because it was funny, and Ronan would make fun of him forever, now, for being another asshole without proper social boundaries.

And it was still a relief that he was somehow okay, despite last night. Intact and relatively present.

It was work to drag him down the hall to the bedroom, but he willingly dropped onto the mattress, and Adam tossed the sofa cushions on the floor and settled against the wall. Ronan was more awake then he had been, or at least putting up a commendable fight to keep his eyes open. His hair was damp, clean, but still tangled. Adam watched him, silently debating, for several minutes. The observation didn’t seem to disturb him. Carefully, lightly, Adam touched his forehead, and when Ronan didn’t react, brushed his fingertips forward through the strands of his hair.

Gradually Ronan let his eyes close. He sighed, and warmth curled around Adam’s wrist.

He felt the presence of a distant, looming terror.

‘I dunno.’ Ronan mumbled.

‘What?’

‘How the - how long. Can’t remember.’

Adam worked loose from a few tangles, and started again. ‘Okay.’

‘Was - uh.’His eyes opened, his gaze flickered across the ceiling. ‘Camping… or… school, maybe.’

‘School?’

‘I don’t remember. I don’t - ’

‘That’s fine.’Adam didn’t need to know. Didn’t have any right to know, anyway, was just afflicted with curiosity and… grief, too.Grief for every night Ronan had spent going through this. Locked in a basement, too, as if it didn’t hurt enough.

‘Tried to hide.’ Ronan closed his eyes. ‘Got my leg ‘nd - heh, I even climbed a fucking tree. I thought… I was dead, or dying, ‘nd some… fucking… demon…’

Adam frowned, unseen.

’Couldn’t go back.’ Ronan explained, with startling assurance. ‘Something wrong with me - something… fucked up.’

‘Go back?’ It didn’t seem possible that Ronan would have been bitten at school. Didn’t seem like him to be camping.Adam was even more painfully curious - fascinated. And a werewolf wasn’t a demon, as Gansey always fervently insisted.

Ronan took a breath.There was blood on his teeth - the cut from the bone still bleeding, or reopened.

‘Home.’ He dipped his chin, as Adam continued untangling his hair. ‘Stayed in the forest. I thought I was possessed, ‘nd they’d - they’d lock me up.’

Adam’s fingers stilled - Ronan swallowed.His eyelids fluttered.

‘Couldn’t remember.’ He offered, reassuringly. ‘Much. Anything. Just stayed in the forest. Months, I think. Kept telling me I’d missed a birthday when they took me back.’

‘Months?’

‘Forest.’ He murmured. ’S’easy. Food and sleep. Sucked when they found me.’

‘What did they do - when it happened?’

He shook his head. ‘Bolted. Could feel it coming. They said it was trauma from an animal attack -’ He reached up to his shoulder idly ‘- I’d lost my shit.’

‘They let you leave with Gansey?’

‘Dad didn’t want me locked up.’ Ronan rolled onto one shoulder, closer to him. Adam pulled the blanket up to cover his back. ‘Said he was wild when he was a kid.’

Adam laughed, faintly. ‘Interesting comparison.’

‘Could break through any place they stuck me.’ Ronan added, proudly. ‘“Strong as the devil”’

‘You’ll go back when you break the curse?’

Ronan didn’t speak. He looked up, tired but steady, and Adam sighed.

He didn’t think there was one. Of course not.

‘What about others?’ Adam wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to ask, but he did it anyway. Ronan wasn’t going to do much in retaliation, at this point, except angrily go to sleep.

Ronan frowned as though the question genuinely confused him. ‘Why?’

It seemed like an equally fair question. But Adam had read about werewolves, in passing. That they did travel in packs, at least sometimes. That it wasn’t unusual for them to mate amongst themselves. The curse wasn’t hereditary, that was clear, but it was a shared experience, an insurmountable distance between them and the rest of the population. Ronan, at least, had Gansey, whatever he was. And a Slayer.

And Adam. Fucked up, human Adam. If nothing else, they were both basement nightmares.

He shrugged it off, dismissing the question, and Ronan blinked away. ‘We’ll get food after.’ He suggested, settling into the mattress. ‘Maybe kebabs.’


End file.
